RR Chapter 5
The villainous Timekiller brings together Ben Prime and Ben Delta, attempting to kill both of them using his latest Time Breaker: Time Breaker Ben! Plot Scene 1 Ben Prime, Ben Delta, His cousin Gwen, and his grandfather Max stand staring towards the Rustbucket, their collective gaze sat squarely on the new figure; a sickly looking mimic of Ben Prime with deep violet armour. Atop the Rustbucket stands the creature’s master, the evil Chronosapien Timekiller, who proudly admires the reaction his work of art had created. Ben Delta: “It’s… It’s you...” Ben Prime: “I can see that...” Gwen: “Wait, but that means… Oh my God.” Max: “Tetrax was--” Ben Prime: “Tetrax? What about him?” Ben Delta: “That means that he’s been using real people for his Timekillers!” Timekiller: “Tetrax was the last Time Breaker I pitted against them. They killed him.” Max: “That’s not fair! He would’ve killed Ben if he wasn’t destroyed first!” Ben Prime: “So you want me to kill an alternate version of myself? You do realise I’ve fought alternate versions of myself before, right? Albedo, Eon, --” Timekiller: “Mad Ben.” Ben Prime tenses slightly. Timekiller: “Oh yes. I know about Mad Ben. How he fought against you in the Eon Crisis. How he helped Subdora and Exoskull rebuild Maltruant. How you let him die at Apollo’s hands.” Prime clenches his fists tightly. Ben Delta watches, scared by both Timekiller and the rage he was inciting within his Prime counterpart - not that he was letting his fear show. Timekiller: “Oh? Did that upset you? Letting one of your friends die angers you?” Ben Prime: “Keep talking, we’ll see what happens when I get angry.” Timekiller: “Ahha-ha!” Timekiller takes a single step forwards, placing his foot on the edge of the Rustbucket’s roof. Timekiller: “Before I go, Delta, you are not the first person present here today to have worn that Omnitrix. Nor are you the second.” Ben Delta: “Wait what does that mean?” Prime’s composure breaks and a lone tear rolls down his cheek. Prime, under his breath: “No...” Prime clenches his fists tightly again for a second, before raising his right hand and slamming down on the Delta Omnitrix violently. Ben grows rapidly into a large red-skinned humanoid with four trunk-like arms. A look of pure hatred scars his four-eyed face. Four Arms: “I reduced Maltruant to rubble I’ll do the same to you!” Delta watches Prime, shocked at the venom in his words. Timekiller: “Try me.” Four Arms runs towards the Rustbucket, roaring as he jumps. At the apex of his jump he draws back for a powerful punch before he falls towards Timekiller. The Tetramand swings his two-fisted attack at the Chronosapien but misses as the villain vanishes and his attack connects with the Rustbucket, putting a large dent into its roof. Max: “Hey! Watch the Rustbucket!” Four Arms pulls his fists out of the warped metal and looks around for his target. Timekiller: “I’m down here.” Ben Prime looks down to see Timekiller standing just a few meters away from his three friends, the key in the villain’s head turning quickly. Four Arms jumps again, causing the Rustbucket to sway as he does. This time he raises all four of his mighty arms above his head and slams them down into the ground. A huge cloud of dust erupts from the dry ground, displaced by the impact. When it clears, the Chronosapien is missing. Having missed once more, he looks around for his target. Timekiller was now standing closer to the Rustbucket. Gwen: “Ben, he’s toying with you!” Four Arms: “I don’t care!” Four Arms charges towards Timekiller one last time. He goes to strike, but seconds before impact Timekiller dodges out of the way with frightening speed. Time seems to slow down as Four Arms’ attention is drawn away from Time Killer and towards where he is now going. He suddenly realises with horror that he is now milliseconds away from punching the modified Ben hard enough to kill him. Time Breaker Ben begins to glow a brilliant, blinding white. The light expands instantly, consuming Four Arms, Timekiller, Ben Delta, Gwen, Max, and the Rustbucket. When the light clears, Four Arms finds himself back in his crater of dirt with Timekiller stood back in front of Time Breaker Ben. Four Arms: “What just happened?” He turns to his friends, all three of whom shrug in confusion. Their attention is grabbed by the Chronosapien laughing. Timekiller: “Ahha-hahaha! It’s a Universal Reboot! You can’t touch him!” Four Arms: “And why’s that?” Timekiller: “Any time you lock this Time Breaker into a continuity where he can only be destroyed, time resets!” Ben Delta: “Resets?” With a green flash, Four Arms reverts to his human form. Gwen: “How can you reset time?” Ben Prime: “And if we’re being pushed back in time, how can I still remember almost killing him?” Timekiller: “Well… Saying time resets is being rather generous. It’s more like kicking you out of one timeline and into another. I didn’t have time to refine him either, so the effect isn’t just local. Heh. I’d reckon there are some fairly annoyed and confused aliens in the Andromeda Galaxy right now...” Ben Prime: “And how do we change him back?” Timekiller: “You don’t.” Ben raises his Omnitrix. Pressing the button on the side, the core rises out. Ben Prime: “Then you should keep running.” Ben Delta: “Wait how’s he even supposed to hurt us?” Timekiller: “Pardon?” Ben Delta: “I mean, he’s just human. We have Omnitrices. How do you expect him to be able to even come close to fighting us?” Timekiller: “Hex, Steam Smythe, Zombozo, the Circus Freaks, Morningstar, and Billions all do well enough against you and they’re only human.” Ben Prime: “I’d beg to differ.” Timekiller: “And besides, your watches are just pieces of technology. Eventually, they will fail you.” Ben Delta: “Your Time Breakers are just technology too, though.” Timekiller: “Yes, technology designed to survive in a war the scale of which you could not begin to comprehend. I’m fairly confident they can outlast barely-prototyped Galvan Technology made by a hermit with girlfriend issues. If you think you can beat my Time Breaker in open combat, go ahead and try. I won’t stop you. But you’ll never be able to touch him, I learnt that mistake from Endless Pursuit.” The key on Timekiller’s head spins once more. Timekiller: “So long you continuity-inept mongoloids!” The Chronosapien vanishes out of view with a blue flash. Time Breaker Ben begins walking towards the two Bens. He has glowing pink eyes and sickly violet skin. A purple metal mask covers his mouth and chin. The same metal covers his chest and forearms, with a blue diamond shape embedded into his chest. Ben Delta: “We need a plan.” Ben Prime: “I know, I’m thinking.” Max: “Maybe now’s time for Grey Matter?” Gwen: “It’s not safe, that’s the only alien the Time Breaker could kill.” Ben Prime: “Well there’s two of us… Ben, Keep him away from me and I’ll try and think of something.” Both Bens bring up their Omnitrix. Prime twists the dial, before settling on Grey Matter and pushing the dial down. Delta swipes wildly looking for an alien he recognised, before the faceplate slides back and he pushes down the core. He becomes a rocky humanoid with purple skin and a single green eye. He has pink shards of crystal jutting out from his chest, with a single pink horn on his head. His hands are made of the same crystal material. Chromastone: “Woah… Is this your version of Diamondhead? I thought I’d selected Wildvine...” Grey Matter: “That would be Chromastone. He’s for absorbing energy, but he’s fairly strong on his own.” Chromastone slams his fists together. Chromastone: “Yeah I can make this work!” Chromastone walks confidently up to Time Breaker Ben. He clamps his two crystalline fists onto Ben’s arms and raises him up, holding him off the ground. Chromastone: “Haha! This should give you enough time to think!” Time Breaker Ben suddenly kicks Chromastone directly in the face with his right heel. Chromastone reels back, dropping Time Breaker Ben. The Crystalsapien holds his face with both hands. Chromastone: “Gah! I thought you said this alien was strong?” Chromastone looks over to Grey Matter, removing his hands to reveal that his mouth now had a crack running down to his chin. Chromastone: “Well that hurt like hell!” Max: “Ben! Language!” Grey Matter: “I may have underestimated his strength. I’ll have to take that into consideration...” Chromastone turns back to fight Time Breaker Ben only to be punched in the gut. Not caught off guard this time, Ben Delta promptly responds in kind with a roundhouse punch to the Time Breaker’s head. Time Breaker Ben collapses. Chromastone: “Hey I think I’m getting somewhere!” The Time Breaker gets back up. Grey Matter watches him, carefully studying him from a safe distance. The mask covering his mouth is now cracked slightly. As Time Breaker Ben walks back up to Chromastone, Grey Matter notices that he is now limping on his right leg. He goes to punch Chromastone again but Chromastone intercepts it, catching his fist. Chromastone pick Ben up again, this time immediately tossing him away. But before the Time Breaker hits the ground, time slows before a white glows flashes out and blinds everyone for a second time. Ben Delta now stands as his normal human self beside the Galvan Ben Prime, Grey Matter. Grey Matter: “Interesting. Time reset back to the short period of time after I transformed but before you did. Perhaps immediate destruction isn’t the only factor in the reset?” Ben Delta: “What happened? Why'd time reset? I was being careful not to break him!” Grey Matter: “Oh there was a rock on the ground where he was going to land.” Grey Matter points at a sharp grey outcrop in the otherwise flat opening they were fighting in. Ben Delta: “Oh. Whoops.” Grey Matter: “Current theory: the resets push back far enough to prevent the assailant from making choices that would lead to the same outcome. Interesting. That does raise the question of how the reset forces us back in time such that we keep our memory but our physical forms are reverted to the point of time we arrive at.” Ben Delta: “Last time we brought up how time travel doesn’t make sense, Timekiller told us to shut up.” Grey Matter: “Duly noted. Not that this matters anyway, I need to find a way to beat him without triggering a reset.” Ben Delta: “Alright then, let’s try again!” The young Ben makes his selection, then slams down the core of the older Ben’s Omnitrix. He immediately transforms into a large, rotund alien with deep murky green skin. A massive black-lipped jaw makes up most of his head with two bulbous eyes in the corners of his mouth. The distinction between where his head ends and body begins is unclear, but around his waist is a green belt with the Omnitrix symbol on it. Black trousers cover his short legs. ???: “...I’m going to guess by the depth perception that this isn’t Wildvine either...” Grey Matter looks at him with shock. Grey Matter: “Huh. I forgot about that one… Used him once before while fighting a Time Beast.” ???: “Does he have a name?” Grey Matter: “Don’t think so. What can he do?” The alien smiles strangely with his head-wide mouth full of sharp teeth. ???: “Let’s see!” He turns to look at Time Breaker Ben. He feels his mouth with his stubby hands. ???: “Large mouth… I bet his powers work something like this!” The creature strains slightly before inflating rapidly, doubling in size with his mouth clamped tightly shut. He stumbles slightly, his balance thrown off by his new weight, before expelling a large quantity of green slime at high speed towards the Time Breaker. The corrupted Ben is knocked backwards onto the ground as the watery fluid puddles around him. The strange substance began to harden almost instantly, immobilising him. ???: “That isn’t exactly what I expected to happen...” Grey Matter: “I know what we should name this new alien!” Both Bens voice their suggestions at the same time: Grey Matter: “ImmoBile!” ???: “Spitter!” Grey Matter: “Spitter? Well you definitely sound like me when I was ten. I’ll stick with ImmoBile.” ImmoBile: “Well I’m sticking with Spitter!” The solid substance holding Time Breaker Ben down began to crack loudly before Ben’s arms shot straight upwards, sending small shards of green muck everywhere. ImmoBile’s broken, alien smile fades. Grey Matter: “That was rather less effective than I had hoped for.” ImmoBile: “Yeah but I don’t see any good reason why I can’t just glue him in place again.” ImmoBile inflated himself again, balancing better this time, before projectile-vomiting all over Time Breaker Ben. The fluid was visibly more yellow this time. A faint hissing could be heard from the Time Breaker as ImmoBile smacks his lips briefly. ImmoBile: “Mmm, spicy!” Grey Matter: “That slime looks a little different this--” With a white flash time resets all over again, reverting Ben Delta to a human form once more. Grey Matter: “--time. I think that may have been acid spit, not adhesive.” Ben Delta: “Grrr! This is starting to get annoying!” He doesn’t even try selecting an alien this time, instead the faceplate slides back immediately and he slams down the dial. He becomes a tall black and yellow humanoid with a floating grey head and sharp two-pronged forks for hands. Grey Matter: “Lodestar! Huh… Thinking about it as Grey Matter I guess magnetism could have more applications than I gave him credit for...” Lodestar charges at Time Breaker Ben. He swings his right claw down and chops Ben’s shoulder to little effect. He then follows through by back-handing the Time Breaker around the face with his left claw. Although this does get a reaction in terms of Time Breaker Ben’s face now facing away in the direction of the swipe, it doesn’t do any damage. Grey Matter: “Magnetism, Ben! You control magnets!” Finally Lodestar fist pumps downwards with both arms in an attempt to use these supposed magnetism powers, accidentally creating a large magnetic field that immediately flings Time Breaker Ben back into the Rustbucket, shattering the windows and creating a large crater in the side. Before Max could complain, a white flash undid the damage. Max sighs in relief. Max: “Oh thank goodness...” Grey Matter: “Hey! He’s vulnerable to magnets! Maybe we can use that to hold him in place? Hmmm… But that could create new problems depending on how he was constructed...” Ben Delta: “Well I’m going to keep just cycling through aliens until either I time out properly or you come up with an idea to bypass that reset.” Once again, Ben Delta slams down the Omnitrix core without looking at the alien he had selected. After the green glow fades, he looks down at his large bronze arms. Clockwork: “CLOCKVERK!” Grey Matter regards Clockwork with a look of mild confusion. Clockwork shrugs. Clockwork: “I saw my future self use this one.” Grey Matter: “Fair enough.” Clockwork prepares to sprint towards Time Breaker Ben to begin fighting again, irrelevant of how well he knew how to fight in this body. Grey Matter: “Wait.” Clockwork pauses in the middle of his first stride, and steps backwards into the neutral pose he had started from. Grey Matter: “I have a better idea. I can’t formulate a plan fast enough in this dimension. Truth be told, I get disorientated and lose my train of thought with each reset. I’ve gotten nearly nowhere with formulating a plan.” Clockwork: “So what do you want me to do about it?” Grey Matter: “I want to try something I did with another version of us a while ago. I don’t know how safe using chronokinetic attacks against Time Breaker Ben would be. If you froze him in time, it could reset again. Clockwork is a valuable asset to us and I’d rather not waste him while we have him. Instead, I want to try this:” Grey Matter reaches around and taps the Omnitrix symbol on his back. He immediately shifts into a large dark humanoid blob with circular purple patterns leading around his body into a large purple stomach. His eye is a single purple circle in the middle of his head. Upgrade looks at Clockwork with the Mechamorphic equivalent of a smirk. Clockwork stares at Upgrade, then looks down at himself, then back to Upgrade. Clockwork: “You’re a madman and I just want to say that I am all in with whatever you have planned.” Upgrade charges towards Clockwork, jumping into him at speed. The black and purple liquid engulfs Clockwork entirely, before integrating with him. They key atop the Chronosapien’s head becomes a large three-pronged fork as his limbs become more rounded and organic in shape. Upgrade’s face aligns in the center of the key, while leaving Clockwork’s own green face unobscured by the alterations. Upgrade: “You ever jumped dimensions before?” Clockwork: “No, should I have?” Upgrade: “Alright then you should probably just let me have control for now.” Clockwork: “Wait what do you mean by tha--” Clockwork’s arms suddenly move upwards from his side to point straight ahead. His eyes widen with a sense of subtle horror. He wasn’t the one that performed that action. Clockwork: “I do not like this at all.” Upgrade: “Don’t worry, this won’t be for long.” The two outward prongs of the upgraded key atop the fusion’s head extend outwards as the fixture begins to turn, slowly at first but accelerating rapidly. Green light consumes them. When the glow fades, both Bens had vanished. Gwen and Max stood motionless, they had been looking at the Upgraded Clockwork before but now with him missing their vision fell on the Time Breaker. It, too, stood motionless. Scene 2 A second green flash signifies that the two heroes had arrived at their destination. The Delta Omnitrix begins to chime and flash red. Upgrade detaches himself from Clockwork as the Omnitrix times out. Ben Prime: “There. Now we have until Timekiller notices that we’re missing to formulate a new plan.” Clockwork looks down at Ben Prime, who is himself looking around to inspect the environment. After a few seconds, the Prime Omnitrix timed out as well. Ben Prime: “Strange. I could have sworn that would’ve taken us back to my dimension.” Ben Delta: “Well then where are we?” The two Bens stand in the middle of nowhere. Beneath them is a large dark purple desert stretching as far as the eye could see. Dunes and dark brown outcrops dot the landscape, occasionally broken up by tall black rock spikes rising up out of the earth. Ben Prime: “I’m not sure.” Ben Delta: “You did say you’d done this before, right?” Ben Prime: “I never said that. I’ve jumped dimensions before but never as Clockwork or Upgrade. I have tried though.” Ben Delta: “Oh great. Stuck in the middle of a dead dimension and no way back until both Omnitrices time back in.” Ben Prime: “Omnitrixes.” Ben Delta: “Huh?” Ben Prime: “Call them Omnitrixes. Omnitrices sounds weird.” Prime thinks in silence for a moment. Not even the wind broke up the stillness of their surroundings, because there wasn’t any. Everything was uncomfortably still. Ben Prime: “I think you’re right.” Ben Delta: “That we’re stuck?” Ben Prime: “No. That this dimension is dead.” Ben Delta: “Oh. I was joking about that...” Ben Prime looked up at the sky. After a second, he pointed up so that Delta would know to look too. The sky was an inky black, dotted with bright white stars still burning light years away. Ben Delta: “That’s kinda pretty.” Ben Prime: “I was thinking more along the lines of scary. Look around. The landscape is dark, but it’s well lit. By what? The stars? And why are there so few? There should be thousands of stars up there, there isn’t any light pollution. And yet there are only, what, thirty?” Ben Delta: “So where are the rest?” Ben Prime: “I think gone would be a safe bet.” Delta thinks for a moment. Ben Delta: “I think I saw a documentary about this once a few months ago. Is this what the heat death of the universe looks like?” Ben Prime: “Not sure. I’m not very cold, are you?” Ben Delta: “I’m not sure that’s what heat death means.” Ben Prime: “No but heat has to come from somewhere. Wherever we are, it’s not quite dead yet but it’s definitely on the way out.” Suddenly the pieces fit together inside Prime’s head. Ben Prime: “... I know where this is. I’ve been here before. This is the timeline where Paradox failed. The Earth aged to dust by a time monster.” Paradox: “Close, but not quite.” Both Prime and Delta screamed in startlement. They turned around to see a tall, fair-skinned man in a lab coat - Professor Paradox. Ben Prime: “Stop doing that.” Paradox: “Apologies. Anyway, we don’t have much time so I must be brief. This isn’t the timeline where I''' failed. It’s the dimension where '''Eon failed.” Noteworthy Events Major Events *Timekiller reveals Time Breaker Ben's powers *Ben Prime and Ben Delta attempt to fight Time Breaker Ben *Prime and Delta end up in Eon's Dimension Minor Events *Time Breaker Ben is revealed, through implication, to originally have been No-Watch Ben. *ImmoBile makes his debut appearance Characters *Ben Delta *Ben Prime *Gwen Tennyson *Max Tennyson *Professor Paradox (cameo) Villains *Timekiller *Time Breaker Ben Aliens Used Ben Prime (using Delta Omnitrix) *Four Arms *Grey Matter *Upgrade Ben Delta (using Prime Omnitrix) *Chromastone (intended alien was Wildvine) *Spitter/ImmoBile (debut appearance, intended alien was Wildvine) *Lodestar *Clockwork Trivia *Lodestar was included in this episode for Lodestar Fest. *Many episodes of Omniverse are referenced in this chapter including, but not limited to; **And Then There Were None **It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Ben World: Part 1 **And Then There Was Ben **A New Dawn **Ben Again **Let's Do the Time War Again **It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Ben World: Part 2 Category:Ben 10: Reboot Revolution Category:Chapters in Ben 10: Reboot Revolution Category:Earth-1010 Category:Episodes Category:Lodestar Fest Category:Alien Fest